Join TechCrunch’s Big CES Adventure

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Ignore the noise. CES is not dead or irrelevant. It’s still the place to find the next big thing. CES is alive and thriving thanks to startups.

If you’re attending the show we want to see you. As in year’s past, TechCrunch will have a large broadcast tent in front of the Las Vegas Convention Center. You can’t miss it. There are LED panels all over it. Twice a day we will hold Hardware Battlefield where 15 startups will compete for $50,000 and the Metal Man trophy. You can watch the show live at the booth or here on TechCrunch.

If you’re a startup, stop by. In past years, you don’t need a CES convention badge to get into the area where our booth is located and if that’s changed, drop us a note and we’ll try to come to you or get you a badge. There’s a contact form below.

We want to see hardware company that can’t afford the big booths. We want to see the makers hustling for attention.

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Each year the same narrative surfaces: CES is dead. The show is irrelevant. My favorite is CESpool. The headlines paint the massive tradeshow as no longer necessary in this era of popup press events and crowdfunding gadgets. But they miss the point. The International CES is not for the press or even the consumer as the show’s name might suggest: It’s for startups.

CES is where company meets buyer. It’s where content and distribution deals are made. The show was designed to bring together everyone in the industry under one roof from buyer to seller to maker yet over the year it outgrew a single venue. CES 2015 is housed in three convention centers throughout Las Vegas. It’s bigger than ever — and seemingly better designed. A lot of hardware startups are now located together in the Sands Convention convention center. In fact TechCrunch secured exhibition space in this venue for all the companies selected to participate in Hardware Battlefield.

If you’re looking for a witty writeup about Samsung’s latest and greatest monitor, you won’t find it in our coverage of CES 2015. We’re interested in the thousands of young hardware companies hungry for attention. They’re why TechCrunch cares about CES.

You can follow our coverage of the event through our social media accounts or by using the hashtag #CESCrunch on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.